With just one week to go until the 2014 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Brazil, decorated soccer player Thierry Henry shared his predictions for the tournament at a Beats by Dre ad campaign screening Wednesday night.

While acknowledging the strengths of Argentina, Germany and reigning champion Spain, the 36-year-old striker views the tournament’s host nation as the biggest threat. “You still have to beat Brazil in Brazil,” said Henry, who helped win the World Cup for France in 1998. “And that’s the thing that I just don’t see happening.”

As for his native France’s chances, he said, “You always have a team that surprises people, right?”

Henry, who currently plays for the New York Red Bulls, appears in the ad, which emphasizes Beats’ ties with sports and music. “The Game Before the Game” (shown above), launched today, and features the pre-game rituals of some of the world’s best soccer players—including Brazil’s Neymar and Spain’s Cesc Fábregas—as well as cameos by LeBron James, Serena Williams, Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne.

“We didn’t ask our athletes to act,” said Omar Johnson, chief marketing officer at Beats, which was recently acquired by Apple. He previously worked at Nike. “You see really bad acting when you get athletes acting,” he said. “I find myself on set asking these guys to just remember when you were going into one your biggest rivalries, and it always evokes the perfect emotion.”

The campaign coincides with the launch of Beats’ new Solo2 headphones, the followup to the popular Solo model, of which the company sells about four per minute around the world according to president Luke Wood. He likened the Solo2 to the brand’s second album. “It’s going from [Nirvana's] ‘Bleach’ to ‘Nevermind,’” said Wood. “It’s going from the first Public Enemy record to ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.’ It’s ‘Paul’s Boutique.’”

“My instinct is that most brands will have unbranded product there, and that’s what the players will be wearing,” Johnson told Speakeasy. “What’ll be really interesting is, as players, they’re going to say, ‘What’s next, my cellphone?’ It’s going to be really interesting in how it gets enforced.”

“We have the best players on the planet that wear our product,” he added. “I think when you start telling them they can’t, the problem’s going to take care of itself.”